


Think but This, and All is Mended

by parkadescandal



Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Land of Departure (Kingdom Hearts), M/M, Post-Re:Mind, Unreliable Narrator, canon-typical riku-ness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:55:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25808446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parkadescandal/pseuds/parkadescandal
Summary: “I guess it must’ve been lonely,” Sora says, kicking his legs from the stone arch of Departure’s entryway as Riku makes a final survey of the training ground. Sora gestures out at the expanse of it to make the point. “The whole... responsibility thing.”
Relationships: Riku/Sora (Kingdom Hearts)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 39
Collections: Re⊕Collect: A Soriku Fic Collection





	Think but This, and All is Mended

**Author's Note:**

> Written for ReCollect, a massive anthology of soriku fanfiction & the exemplar when it comes to labors of love. It's a gorgeous book with inordinate amounts of talent, & i'm happy to have been just a small part of something much bigger. 
> 
> This Ao3 collection is filled to the brim with incredible fic writers for you to check out & sing your praises to, especially the galaxy brains behind the concept itself, knittenkitten & greeneggs101. I hope you enjoy my contribution.

Riku rescues Sora, as far as you could call it that. It’s long. It’s arduous. But eternities pass and and they stand one to one again, and Riku extends a hand to circle it around Sora’s wrist and anchor himself—

_“We’ve been split up too many times. I can’t let it happen again, I have to tell you—”_

But Riku’s face is captured between Sora’s hands and Riku’s errant tear is stolen by Sora’s wayward thumb—

Sora rescues Riku, as far as you could call it that. It’s pretty. It’s picturesque. In no time at all they find their lives merged together in a brand new way, a brilliant one, adhered by love and loyalty laid bare.

A sweeping gust, a powerful deluge, the force of nature pushing together what nurture on its own had yet to manage—

No one could dream a better happily ever after.

* * *

“Still can’t believe they left you in charge of this place,” Sora says, extending his arms and twirling himself like a gyre across the marble floors. The castle had longed for a warmth like his—he fits right in, kindly absorbed by the sparkle of sunlight reflected from the floor and looking not an atom out of place.

“Right place, right time.” The smile Riku had vague thoughts of reserving breaks at the sight of him—he’s strewn himself over the throne, limbs stretched out as he settles in to claim it. “But it’s not all fun and games.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he says, throwing his hands behind his head and gazing at the ceiling. “Bet you had the run of the joint. Parties all the time.”

“Got it in one.”

He’d much rather it have been parties. There’d been plenty of time to spare, after all—Riku is more than happy to start overwriting the second after meticulous second he had spent keeping the castle spic and span with a celebration, the treasure himself throned in the center as reward for the trial. One might forget that darkness exists here as well, in perfect concert with the light… Forget, that is, until standing under sterile stained glass for want of company. Even well-lit, the place retains a labyrinthine quality with which he is unfortunately familiar. It’s easy to understand how castles Departure and Oblivion stemmed from the same roots when being drawn deeper by the captivating quiet.

He imagines it isn’t much different than the first time he heard it described, the way it had blossomed out like a lotus to reveal Ventus in the center, reclaimed from right under their noses. He imagines it now, thinks of a figure sleeping against the backdrop of a grotesque glow, trapped indefinitely in the cold. The horror hasn’t escaped Riku that he’s got all it takes to bring that very oblivion right back.

He blinks, shaking off the dread that starts and the panic that follows when he finds himself lost in the image for too long. For a second he’s not sure it works until he realizes Sora has gone suspiciously quiet—he’s even more lax from where he’s sprawled out, caught in a slump, likely already in a deep doze.

“Hey,” Riku says softly. “Hey, Sora.”

It’s nothing to worry about, he knows, but he crosses the room all the same. Much of it comes from the selfish desire to have the sound of Sora’s voice continue to keep him company, but now there’s always a tinge of trepidation concerned when it comes to his tendency to nap—the context is now dramatically changed from former well-earned siestas brought by swords and sun and sand. The things they found so draining in another life pale in comparison to the rigors of the present day.

As Riku had suspected, he finds Sora’s eyes closed and breaths deepened, then the predictable surge of affection that comes with it. He shakes his head in playful disapproval while the answering melancholy comes to wrap itself inside and temper it. He briefly entertains moving him for the solitary purpose of cocooning him there as long as he needs, but thinks better of adding another variable. The equation: _them_ , equaled by Sora’s tenuous pride at his middling strength and Riku’s troubling urge to become the physical manifestation of the barrier spell that keeps him. It’s understandably a little unbalanced.

Riku at least grew used to the anger of seeing him wrung out and used like so much scrap cloth again and again, as deeply as it frustrated the both of them. Such incredible power coveted again and again by forces what would misuse it, the source of that power remaining elastic each time. Riku fears there’s only so much more pressure Sora can take before it ceases and he stalls on the snap back. He paid dearly for his own misuse—no one ever said the rules were fair.

_Consequences_ , Sora once said, resigned, upon waking from a spell; he dutifully repeated what he learned by rote and crinkled his nose with disdain. _‘There will always be consequences.’_

_Consequences_ , Riku agreed without a trace of judgment—the sentiment remains the same. He’ll do what he can to pave them over by the power bestowed upon him as king of second chances.

He reaches down to shake him by the shoulder, careful not to be too delicate.

“You snoozin’ on me again?”

He stirs. Riku puts a hand on his hip and cocks his head to the side so he can greet him with all the force of his clearly affected disapproval. Sora crosses his arms with a petulant air and screws up his face in displeasure.

“Why don’t you tell me,” he says drowsily. “Ask yourself the same question.”

“Figured I’d let you have this one.”

Riku kneels beside him and reaches up to leave a bolstering grip on his arm. Maybe he can’t imbue his own strength there, but he’s got a trick or two. His smile is much more subtle than his grip, but quite a few times more effective. He reaches up and skims his hand across Sora’s cheek to lay it steady and rests his other hand at his knee, thumb idly stroking back and forth.

Sora looks down at him, in an instant piercing and alert.

“You already know.”

Riku lets a beat and a blink pass before giving his answer due, skirting it along with a deep floating sigh.

“Yeah,” he says. “Guess I do.”

Sora’s hazy blink hints at the drowse returning, but he shakes his head lightly and smiles.

“Know-it-all.”

“Oh, I’ll teach you. You’ll be sorry—you’re _lucky_ I’m such a know-it-all. Where else would you learn?” Riku gauges his success by the smile Sora gives while shaking his head. “Lot more where that came from. Haven’t even gotten around to the part where I share my wisdom.”

“ _Wisdom_ ,” Sora says, sticking his tongue out.

“Yeah. Where I tell you not to get caught sleeping, or someone will sneak up on you.”

“Like how?” he says. “Like this?”

And there he proceeds to make his point with a swift uppercut to the gut.

“ _Ow_ \- hey!”

“You’re always terrible at taking your own advice,” he says, surprisingly cold and shrewd. Riku looks up sharply from where he’s still pretending to double over in the agony of betrayal, but the ice fades from Sora’s face to give way to something appropriately smug. He sticks his tongue out again. “Terrible,” he starts with a drawling melodrama. “ _Terrible_ , terrible, _terr_ —”

He shouts as he is lifted bodily from his seat.

“Nope,” Riku says, hefting him over his shoulder. “Meant something more like this.”

The whole way back he shouts in protest, but his peals of laughter in between undermine him, though not as much as staying put does— Riku’s grip remains loose the whole time, for fear of holding too tight, of never letting go. A vise might jeopardize the privilege for which he finally admits he paid tithe: the quiet bliss of getting to love him just like this.

* * *

“You know, it’s weird,” Sora says apropos of nothing, waving away the glare of the setting sun pouring through the windows. “You’d think with all the stuff we’ve seen, I’d have a little more material. But I still always dream about swimming.”

“Back to the motherland,” Riku agrees. “Like all those species of fish that have to migrate back home. I think it means...” and here he puts on a face of import, deep gravitas, knowledge of a master— “...that you’re a smelly fish.”

“You’re a smelly fish,” Sora mumbles, stretching out his legs where he rests them across Riku’s lap. He rolls his shoulder-blades, languid, before lifting up his arms and dropping one at a time around Riku’s neck. The next time he mutters it’s to the hollow of his throat, where he’s shoved his nose. “Not me. You. You’re a fish.”

“What an honor.” Riku cranes down to press his lips to the top of his head. “I’d say it’s going swimmingly.”

There’s a prolonged tickle of vibration at his throat where Sora groans into it in response. They settle in, and Riku resists the urge to rock him like a swaddling infant in his arms.

“Riku,” Sora says to his throat after a stretch.

“Yeah.”

“You know that’s not what I mean.”

Riku doesn’t respond, only presses his grip just a little tighter.

“Riku.”

“I know,” he says, but a cool has already settled around the room—it’s that much warmer when Sora reaches up to touch his jaw, pulling him away to meet his eye.

“I’m happy to see you like this,” he says, but there’s something strange and a little wistful about it; wrong. “I love to see you happy. But..”

“I mean,” Riku cuts in coldly. “It’s only a matter of time, right.”

“Hey, you’re not—”

“Just not destined to have anything for long. That’s all.”

Sora falls silent, looking over and elsewhere.

“Maybe not,” he says softly after a moment.

“I know.”

“ _Do_ you? Because you keep telling me that, but nothing changes.”

Sora closes his eyes, overcome once again by a weighted exhaustion, and makes the effort to open them again.

“I’m sorry.”

Riku pulls him close, letting Sora rest his head on his shoulder, then settles in with a dismissive sigh.

“Don’t,” Sora starts, and Riku freezes, terrified of the denial, but after a breath he continues. “Don’t chase it. Remember—you told me...”

But it’s all he can manage before once again falling asleep.

* * *

Riku waits a little while, but it’s peaceful, nice for a change. The rain comes steadily, concordant droplets falling from the trees, and onto the concrete, and unto the sluice below that reflects the lights of the city in soft and mute echoes. It’s the only sound, for a while, welcome white noise, and it’s only interrupted by the sound of boots gently splashing from a rapidly lessening distance.

He turns and finds himself overcome with a smile.

“Kairi,” he says pleasantly, taken aback by the realization that he’s terribly glad to see her. She startles, as if she weren’t expecting him to be there, but recovers quickly. She smiles at him in her little way, warm but measured, as if she’s worried she’s going to give herself away just for the crime of having a feeling. He missed that smile.

She sits down next to him, and looks up at the awning that just barely covers them. As soon as she does a droplet of runoff rain kisses her square on the nose, and she crinkles her face and shakes it off with the tiniest cry.

“How are you?” he asks, unable to stay any of the affection from it.

“I’m fine,” she says, watching with warning in her face for more intruders of the sort who might rain on her parade. “It’s been a while.”

“Has, hasn’t it.”

“But it goes by quick.”

Riku gives a little hum of agreement, and they sit there for a moment more.

“Might as well wait it out together.”

“Could be another while,” Kairi says, looking directly ahead, cocking her head matter-of-factly with a quirk at her mouth. “I think he’s lost.”

She turns up her lip, but it freezes in place when she bites her cheek to catch a smile before it lands.

“Me too.”

“I know.” She puffs a little breath, too dainty to be a sigh, and captures the moment for herself, holding the strings on it while he waits for her to tug. To his surprise, she simply sends it away with a nudge. “You asked me if I was sure.”

She doesn’t want him to confirm—it’s not for her benefit. He mirrors her expression and chews at his lip with full concentration. The next dot of rain that comes to call claims him as well, but he allows it to slide from the bridge of his nose to the concrete below.

“I did,” he answers simply. “I think I get it now.”

“I realized it’s been long enough,” she says softly, setting it free in the air like a weight from her shoulders. “I told myself it’s time to move on.”

“I’m glad you did.”

She looks at him with a rueful blink, then shakes her head a degree.

“I was doing it again. Even after I promised myself I wouldn’t, I made the same mistake.”

“What was that?”

“Waiting. It still isn’t good enough.”

With that she stands, brushing off her skirt absently while looking out beyond for a minute. When she turns it’s to find him still seated. She cocks her head, then reaches out a hand as if to help him up. He shakes his head, and her hand drops to her side.

“Good luck,” he tells her softly. “I mean it.”

She looks at him for another moment, crossing her arms at her chest to settle in and hold herself. He smiles lightly at her.

“Thank you,” she says eventually, and when he doesn’t say anything further, she continues on in the same direction she was headed before they’d met, leaving one thing over her shoulder as she goes. “You too.”

* * *

“I guess it must’ve been lonely,” Sora says, kicking his legs from the stone arch of Departure’s entryway as Riku makes a final survey of the training ground. Sora gestures out at the expanse of it to make the point. “The whole... responsibility thing.”

“Why mention it?”

He turns away, chagrined.

“I... I don’t know, actually. I guess I just thought that if it was anything like it is now, it had to be... even...”

He trails off and turns away, like he’s begging the subject to mirror his gaze and land on something new. His face falls.

“Could it be?” Riku calls from below, seeing surprise pick up the slack on the poor job he’s doing with training his expression.

“What?”

“Is it possible that I get to be the one to tell you to quit throwing your own pity parties?” He crosses his arms over his chest and leans against the archway, eyes closed as he calls to the top. “I never thought this day would come. Unbelievable.”

“Hey.”

“What’s that? I can’t hear you. Too much interference.”

“Would you can it—”

“There’s something disrupting the airwaves, wait—It’s the sound of you feeling bad for yourself. It’s too loud.”

“It’s not funny.”

“Never was.”

“But knowing you, you’re gonna find a way to turn it all around and tell me why you’re the only one who... who _deserves_ it.”

Sora climbs down and makes a soft landing, a little noise dusting up underneath his feet upon impact, then leans against the archway too.

“Nah, actually. Not this time,” Riku says.

“No?”

“No.”

“Really.”

“Yeah. Way I see it, there’s always gonna be a lesson to learn. It doesn’t just end.”

Sora stays quiet for a moment, considering, and lands on the rest with a sigh. “Can’t say I’m thrilled to be back in school,” he starts. “But it’s my mistake, and I’ve gotta answer for it. No one else should have to.”

“I would. If I thought you’d let me.” Riku looks over to find him peeking back from over his shoulder. “Got plenty of practice, after all.”

“Not sure it’s worth the hassle.”

“It’s worth it, alright. In fact there’s not a lot I wouldn’t give.”

He’s caught up in his own little dust devil—the eye of the tornado around him in an embrace, and the nose of it planted in his chest.

“I’m sorry,” Sora says, insinuating himself into Riku’s arms, which he cautiously places around him. “If I knew how much trouble—”

“No, no, you’re right—it really does get old fast.”

Sora grips tighter.

“You can’t take that back later, okay?”

“Promise.”

“While you’re at it. It’s important. I need something else. Please. Please, please.”

Riku laughs. There isn’t much left under the sun and stars, but where there’s a will—have light, will travel.

“Anything.”

“Wake up.”

A thousand years later the second passes and he takes a breath, pressing his fingertips to his back.

“I can’t.”

Sora shakes his head, and in a voice too quiet to be properly hoarse says, “You’re stalling.”

“There’s not enough—”

“I wouldn’t either. But I don’t have a choice.”

Riku tries to reach up to take him at the shoulders but is hit by a wave of exhaustion so strong and sudden that were he not already leaning back it would stagger him.

“No,” he says, shaking his head, but everything’s already slowed down; he slumps, feeling simultaneously the icy paralysis of lost control and the arms bracketing him, which still do little to assuage the fear. The last thing he sees is Sora’s face, clear and alert and entirely devastated.

* * *

_They’ll lead you nowhere._

Riku looks side to side in the dark like tugged by a string, and braces on the ground where he’s ended up, feeling the impression of the asphalt under his hands.

“What’s that?” he shouts, pushing himself upward. He stands to the blinding sun of the courtyard in the Land of Departure. “Who—”

He loses balance and sways, and when he gasps for breath he’s choked by the deluge of rainwater flooding the asphalt around him.

“I won’t—”

_Don’t chase it. You know better than anything._

He’s on his knees, blinded this time by the spark of the streetlamp above that’s just burnt out.

“I won’t do it anymore!”

He musters all he’s got in one final burst, propels himself upward to cross stone and marble to the massive doorway of the castle ahead. But he tilts forward, and it’s back in the dark, and

_an abyss- they’ll lead you nowhere-_

The sun scalds, right down to his scalp. From the distance he hears shouting.

“Stop it! Please!”

_you’ll never be able to wake up-_

“Maybe I don’t want to,” he concedes; his eyes roll, and he collapses where he stands.

* * *

The city is quiet when he rises—as if it’s sealed in a vacuum: ahead of him is a wall of distortion, and beyond it, in the center—

Riku moves toward it, falls into a stride, feeling pavement giving way beneath; he breaks into a run, only stopping at the moment just before he reaches Sora, stalled by a barrier that arrests him at the spot. Even then it repels him—under his foot where he’s crossed that line is a horrible cold. It reaches up to lap around him, to draw him in and keep him there as it forms a layer of something solid. He tries to step forward, feeling an icy dread.

“Stop. You can’t. That’s not how it works here.”

He steps back, enough to take Sora in while still close enough to touch. He reaches out his hand, expecting more resistance, but it glides through the barrier. Surprised, and at a loss, he remains suspended there, but only for a second—his hand is clasped by another. He reaches another tentative hand over and finds it matched by its twin.

“Hey,” Riku says over the barrier, fingers clasped loosely around Sora’s. “It’s time to stop goofing around. You’ve gotta come home.”

“Don’t know if I’m allowed to.”

“What’ll they do?” he says around a swallow, reedy. “Ground you?”

“Little worse than that.”

He looks up, pretense gone and all the shame with it—he begs.

“Please come home. Please. I miss you so much.”

Sora’s mouth is tight. He reaches out to touch him, spreads his palms flat right below his chest—like he can keep his heart buoyed, force it floating to bob atop the wash of wet grief pooled up from the very inside of him.

“I can’t.”

It’s all he can do to reserve the breath for a whisper, held soft and taut by an anchor of tears.

“Then neither can I. We need you.”

“Don’t you dare give up on me.”

Riku hisses at the implication. “I’ll _never—_ ”

“If you don’t go back it’s over for _both_ of us, and you know it. This isn’t you, I _know_ it isn’t. I never thought I’d see the day you admit defeat.”

“Then what about _you_?”

“I’ll be fine here as long as I know they still have you,” Sora says with blistering confidence.

“But—”

“ _No_!” Sora shouts, stopping him cold. “When the next thing happens—because we know it will—you’re the best chance they’ve got. Maybe the _only_. You can’t leave the realm of light defenseless—they need you.”

“They need _you_.”

“Well, I messed up, didn’t I?” Sora says, just a note of bitterness seeping in as he throws his gaze downward. “Some hero. And now I find out that it’s gonna end up being for nothing because you won’t go back and defend it in my place. That’s at least strike two. So no, they don’t need someone who’s going to keep screwing things up. I’m no good at all anymore.”

“That’s not— You don’t really think…”

“What if I do? You’re not doing a great job of showing me.”

He’s struck, staggered in place like he’s been slapped; there’s a heavy pull in his chest that strains the motion from him.

“Fine,” he says hoarsely. “But it’s not because you’re not good enough. It’s because I’m not. Not without you.”

“It really does get old real fast, doesn’t it?” Sora lets out one forlorn sigh, then pulls his gaze around the distortion from the city beyond—a fiction, still, just like the rest, though far less pleasant. “I’m sorry. I really am. I wish I’d caught on faster.”

“How long did you know?”

“Not as soon as you, I think. I gotta admit, it took me awhile. It never occurred to me that it was a little weird to go so long without seeing anybody else but you.”

“Figured you’d get tired of me eventually.” Riku smiles wryly, though his heart’s not in it.

Sora shakes his head.

“Early on... I’d see you, right out of reach, and you’d smile at me and hold out your hand. Every time, I’d go as fast as I could, but I couldn’t reach you in time. You kept teasing me... laughed at me and told me to keep up.” Riku laughs, mirthless, and looks to the ground. “I kept going deeper, because all I wanted to do was tell you ‘ _I’m trying_.’ But you never heard me. You just stood there and smiled and waited.”

Riku meets his gaze, pressing his lips together at the sobriety of Sora’s expression. “I’ve never done anything but lead you into trouble.”

Here Sora falls into something more like the disappointment he’d expected to come earlier when he shakes his head in denial. “But we always find our way back.” He reaches to put a hand on his chest again, spreading his fingers over his heart. “Think it’s ‘cuz you’ve got a good moral compass. But it’s no good unless you use it. I can’t follow you home if you never go.”

Riku looks away again, not letting anything but the streetlamps catch the flint in his expression.

“Then say I take that chance. Say I walk away just to head back into the same old thing, but I leave you here. You’d be stuck.”

“Guess you’ll just have to take a nap every once in a while and see if I come to visit.”

“How’s that fair to anyone else?”

“Guess you’ll just have to wait and find out, won’t you?” Sora moves his hand from his chest to tangle their fingers together. “You have an option and you won’t even try it. Tell me how _that’s_ fair.”

“Losing’s not an option.”

“Then you just have to trust me.” He pulls their fingers apart. “If it’s even half as much as I trust you, then I know we’ll figure something out.”

It’s not a promise, but a compromise; Riku sighs, ragged.

“Got lazy without having to carry you around, I guess. Got caught sleeping on the job.”

“Happens to the best of us.”

Riku shakes his head before raising his hand to reach back through, but stops himself.

“I’ll leave a light on for you.” He takes one more deep breath. “Listen. If we’re going to keep getting separated… I don’t even have to tell you by now. But I have to let you know before it happens again. I—”

“No.” Sora reaches a hand up to his face, then wipes away the tears under Riku’s eyes that finally escape him. He smiles, and shakes his head one last time. “Not now. It’s okay. You can tell me in the morning.”

The spell breaks. As much as you could call it that. His choice’s been made—Riku pulls away.

“Good night,” he says as he steps backwards. Already foggy, he takes one last look then closes his eyes before tipping backward into oblivion.

* * *

It’s a slow waking, the operation systems in Riku’s brain coming alive in whirring waves to match the steady humming of Radiant Garden’s lab, just as mild an alarm as it is a lullaby—he labors through each steep stair of the ascent back to the light just the same, fluttering eyes the first allies to return to his team from the bone deep paralysis of the overslept.

“Hey, lazy bum.” Kairi comes into focus—he looks up to acknowledge her standing over him.

The ability to call back movement comes in a wave; he shifts, gently flexing his hand, caught on the phantom sensation of Sora’s fingers sliding from his. He’s going to ensure that their hands connect again on this side of the veil, and he’s going to ensure they stay that way. Deliberate, he closes his hand around the feeling, then opens his palm to let it go, pushing himself up to address Kairi’s patient stare.

“Sorry I kept you,” he says.

She only smiles and extends a hand. Riku reaches up to take it, determined; on the way up he sloughs off the exhaustion to rise to new resolve.

**Author's Note:**

> _If we shadows have offended,  
> _ _Think but this, and all is mended—  
> _ _That you have but slumber'd here_   
>  _While these visions did appear._
> 
> [[x](http://shakespeare.mit.edu/midsummer/midsummer.5.1.html)]  
>   
>  ~~a midsummer night's dream drop distance~~  
>   
>  i'm reminded the play referred to in the quote was an unintentionally comedic take on pyramus & thisbe that i really wish i could say i alluded to on purpose. also, [here's the playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1gWHSzI38ehEAuwTjG4GrH?si=2pVv8WOHRSuEWQapaM7hdA), which is a lot less tongue in cheek than i should probably admit. 


End file.
